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Today’s
Post is brought to you by…The
Responsibility to Ignore Group (formerly known as The Realists’ Guild): We
believe that we can never make a difference in this mad world of ours, and that
only problems on the domestic front merit our serious attention. For this, we
further believe that we have a responsibility to ignore the evil around us.
Because ignored evil is contained evil, as we know, and high walls and
fortified borders are sufficient protections. Amorality is how we prosper.
Indifference to the plight of others is how we prove our strength, resolve and
superiority. For yes, we are also convinced that we remain far more morally and
intellectually superior to others, and it is indeed for this reason that we
cannot afford to care about them, lest they hold us back, or, heavens forbid,
we descend to their level.

Whatever
makes you sleep well at night:It’s
Not Obama’s Fault “The inconvenient truths about why you can’t blame the West
for what's happened in Syria.” The argument made here by Aaron David
Miller would have been believable had the United States not had a long history
of interventions, many of which justified on humanitarian lines, and the last of
which, in Libya, came exactly as the nonviolent protest movement erupted in
Syria. Indeed, in Libya, the administration chose to intervene on the side of an armed
insurrection, while it turned a blind eye to the cause of the nonviolent
protesters in Syria, even they dominated the scene for close to a year, before
the pressures of militarization took over and the country descended into civil
war.

So, when Syrian activists looked to
the United States in particular for leadership, this tendency did not come out
of nowhere, it was not born in a vacuum,
rather, it stemmed from well-established facts and trends in America’s
own history, including its own recent actions. The Bush administration’s
intervention in Iraq justified on the basis of democracy promotion, and its
support of the Freedom Agenda, which included providing funds for training
thousands of nonviolent activists in Syria and across the region played an
important role here. So did the Obama administration’s intervention in Libya,
support for change in Tunisia and Egypt, and its own stances on the crisis in Syria
itself, from President Obama’s early praise of nonviolent protest leaders, to
his call for Assad’s departure, to his infamous red line.

Beyond the United States, the
development and adoption by dozens of states as well as the UN of the legal
doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect, whose applicability to the Syrian
situation was all too evident since the early days of the Syrian Revolution, played
a crucial role in building up expectations as well. Obama himself was known to
have been a supporter of the application of this doctrine in Darfur, and he had
invoked it in regard to Libya. Having Susan Rice and Samantha Powers on his
national security team, two one-time vehement advocate of this doctrine loomed
as a good sing in this regard. If there were an aura of inevitability to the
situation in Syria devolving into a civil war, there was an even stronger aura
of inevitability in regard to America’s intervention in Syria.

The prospect that Syria would be
allowed to devolve into this quagmire flew in the face of a well-established
legal, humanitarian and political trends championed by liberals like Obama,
endorsed by promises from a variety of politicians, Left and Right, and sealed
with legal doctrines that ended up acquiring UN support. As such, Obama’s
decision on noninvolvement in Syria came out of nowhere and cannot be justified
in this callous manner.

Trying to pass the hot potato to
the Arabs comes by way of deflecting blame. Authoritarian Arab regimes had no
reason to rush to the defense of nonviolent prodemocracy protesters, but,
giving America’s dithering, they had enough time to do what they do best: help
Assad turn the nonviolent movement into an armed insurrection, then, Islamize
it. Moreover, when Western Europe itself proved time and again that, without
American leadership, she is incapable of mustering the will necessary to stop
conflicts even when they occur on its own turf, as was the case in Bosnia and
Kosovo, trying to lay the blame on an impotent entity like the Arab League make
absolutely no sense. In fact, this is what “infantilizing” our situation
actually looks like. There is an Arab identity out there, but it has repeatedly
proven too weak to allow for the adoption of concerted efforts on any crisis.
The reality is Saudis, Egyptians, Moroccans, Syrians etc. are different peoples
with different, sometimes, radically different, customs and interests and
outlooks to be lumped together under one epithet. Outside scholars have known
that and asserted it for decades. As such, it’s simply too facetious to invoke
Arabism at this stage.

To put it differently: watching
someone drown when you are a good swimmer and in possession of a boat, life
vests and a rope, yet choosing to do nothing is actually illegal in many
countries, and not just immoral. Justifying your inaction by claiming that you were
afraid of some hypothetical sharks in the water, or by claiming that it was the
responsibility of other people to intervene, people whom you well know are bad
swimmers and can barely keep their heads above water should they go in, does
not help your case.

As for America, people look up to
her, because she willingly (and actively, at least since WWII) sought to be in
that position, by virtue of its values and interests. Syria was never a test
that Obama “couldn’t possibly have passed,” it was a test that he chose to
ignore. And no, Obama was not expected to do everything alone, but he was
expected to lead the way, as behooves an American leader. There have been
numerous occasions where an American intervention could have made ample
difference and prevented this mass slaughter.

Even now there are a variety of
ways where an American intervention can create a more suitable environment for
holding serious peace talks by establishing a better balance of forces on the
ground. But Obama has amply proven by now that he is not the kind of guy who
can be counted on to do the decent thing. Realists reserve their decency to the
home front, because the ideal of creating a better world is not realistic, nor
is it the responsibility of the powerful. This is what idealists may contend
and want, but it’s not what realism is about.

So, Aaron, you are quite wrong: America
does squarely belong on the list of countries to blame for what’s happening today
in Syria, and across the region. It belongs there by virtue of its own history,
its own values, its own power, and the actions and stated positions of its
recent leaders, including many of those adopted by President Obama himself.

The realists might want to deny
all this, falling back on that old amoral behavior, that never disappeared
anyway, because it makes the job of leadership much easier and, perhaps, much
more popularly justifiable, considering its low material costs on the short-run.
But that does not make their choice right, neither strategically or morally, and
will not make its long-term costs disappear. When concentration camps
are back in vogue again, there is something fundamentally wrong at works,
and the most powerful nation on earth, as its leaders keep boasting, cannot
afford to look the other way or wring its hands.

The Deliricon

Dikafwellian
(Dickensian/Kafkaesque/Orwellian): An adjective used to aptly
describe modern realities. But although the term itself is accurate, the
intellectual credentials of its inventors and potential users remain subject to
further scrutiny.

Dosdikafwellian
(Dostoyevskyesque/Dickensian/Kafkaesque/Orwellian): A synonym of the
term Dikafwellian often used by more pretentious intellectual wannabe types. Hence,
it’s far more common.

To His
Undying Shame!Kerry
'blames opposition' for continued Syria bombing. He also warns them that
rebels will be decimated as Russia intensifies its bombing campaign over the
next three months. So, nothing that the Russians and Iranians are currently
doing in Syria comes as a surprise to the people in the Obama administration,
and none of it seems to meet with their disapproval. At this stage, none of
this is surprising, but every bit of it is still disgusting. What
a shame! What a crying shame!

For A
Little More Shame:Syria:
Assad regime kills so many detainees it amounts to 'extermination' of civilian
population, UN says. “UN investigators called the deaths of those detained by the
regime a crime against humanity.” Russia/Syria:
Daily Cluster Munition Attacks. “Increased Use of Widely Banned Weapon.” The
one line the West keeps repeating about Syria that is helping Assad win the war.
“As the
diplomats called for a peaceful resolution to the crisis… pro-regime
forces were encircling Aleppo — Syria's largest city — aided by heavy
Russian airstrikes that are estimated to have killed
scores of civilians.” But of course none of this means anything.
It’s not the responsibility of the leaders of the most powerful nation on earth
to do anything to stop this, not to mention prevent it when they could.
Because, as history has repeatedly shown, principles and wise-ass utterances
aside, with great power comes great indifference to the suffering of others. For
it’s by caring for others that we become weak.

Shame As
A Necessary Good:Why
Obama fails the leadership test in the Middle East. “The US "better
safe than sorry" approach to the Middle East has proven dangerous.”
Indeed, the Obama administration created more chaos in the Middle East, but it did
so, on the cheap. That’s the nature of its accomplishment: not less chaos, but
cheaper chaos. More importantly perhaps, contrary to its predecessor, which recognized
its fuck ups at one point, owned up to them, and tried to correct them through
the surge, rekindling the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and remaining
committed to isolating the Assad regime, the Obama administration seem quite
content with its fuckups. Indeed, the administration and its realist supporters
seem committed to seeing wisdom in their folly, and triumphs in their multiplying
defeats, and to congratulating themselves on all this, right up to the Gates of
Hell, and even they step in pulling the rest of us behind them. Talk about
ideology. Realism turns out to be the more dangerous ideology of all.

Assavros calls on
all the Shialeks of the world to come to Syria to exterminate the reviled Sunnimies

So, and as stories of extermination
of detainees and of Russia’s use of cluster munition come out, nothing will
change, because no one in the administration sees a need for change. What’s
happening in Syria is everybody else’s problem, and fault. And it’s actually
good, since it is draining our enemies’ resources, sapping their energy, and
preventing them from shifting their focus elsewhere… and it’s others that are
paying the price for all this. Isn’t amorality wonderful? We can watch other people fuck each other
while we reap the benefit.

As for that possibility that we
might see ourselves one day friendless and surrounded by enemies united in our hatred,
the realists would like to remind us that we have the strongest military in the
world, even when compared with all other armies combined. Well, that may be,
but, doesn’t such facile calculus represent exactly what hubris is
made of?

Be that as it may, and considering
all the above, I can only conclude by saying: Fuck you President Obama and Secretary
Kerry. Fuck you both from all my heart. Personally, I'll never forget the day when
Kerry paid a visit to Bashar Al-Assad in Damascus back in January 2005, right
after his defeat to Bush in the elections, and by way of trying to undermine
Bush’s Syria policy at the time. The series of interrogations to which I was
subjected took place right after this visit, and were, in a way, a product of it.
Assad had been avoiding me up until then, for fear of antagonizing America. But
once reassured that there were powerful people in the Senate who stood by him, and
thought of him as a reformer and an ally even, my immunity disappeared, and that
space for activism which my family, my colleagues and I have created inside
Syria began to shrink continuously until we were ordered out of the country. Now,
the same person is involved in sealing Syria’s fate, and not only mine, and
that of the liberal democrats. Admittedly, we
were always few, but we were pioneers, we led. And for all the boasting of
leftist and Islamists, this was our revolution to begin with, and we were betrayed
first, and foremost. We had to be. With us out of the way, with few nonviolence
advocates and moderates on the scene, the administration can then justify the betrayal
of the entire country. Where are the moderates? They keep asking. Right!

Well, again, fuck you sir, and sir,
and all you SOBs who support their policies on Syria. Fuck you all for being
such good and decent folk on so many domestic issues and so amorally tribal
when it comes to certain foreign affairs. Fuck you all for being so good
at compartmentalizing your sense of decency and humanity, for imposing geographical
limitations on them.

Love in the time of sectarianism

Impunity
Triumphant:Couple
takes eye-opening wedding photos in bombed-out Syrian city. (“The wedding
photographer told Eid that the purpose of the shoot was to demonstrate “life is
stronger than death.” But the images are more complicated than its "love
conquers all" message. Youseff is a soldier in Bashar al-Assad’s army. The
Syrian president’s regime did this to Homs after rebel forces took over Homs in
the middle of the war. After Syrian forces laid siege to the stronghold, the
rebels evacuated and the city fell back under governmental control at the end
of 2015.) No. This is not simply about a soldier in Assad’s army
celebrating his wedding while standing in the ruins of a former rebel
stronghold. The truth is even worse. This is about an Alawite couple
celebrating victory over their fellow countrymen who happen to be Sunnis. By
pointing this out, there will be many who call me a sectarian
agitator. Still that level of hatred is definitely not Obama’s
doing. And it is still ugly even when it is so sexed up. Eye-opening indeed.

Our societies offer people like
Assad enough ingredients for them to whip out a nasty sectarian quagmire. That’s
why we needed to oust him. That’s why we needed help. When people like Obama
refuse to intervene on our behalf, Assad has plenty people like him around the
world who will come to his rescue, intending to send a message to their people
back home. Obama has sent a message to the people back home, and it resonates
far stronger than anything he said directly at the Baltimore Mosque, or at any
of the funerals he attended over the years.

R.E.S.P.E.
C.T.U.S.,
other nations condemn North Korean launch of long-range rocket. The world
has given much to Iran just for threatening to become a nuclear power.
Meanwhile, N. Korea is already a nuclear power and already has long range
missiles and is getting nothing for it. I am not really sure how Kim Jong Un
defines respect, or if he can even spell it, but I am pretty sure it includes a
kind of recognition of N. Korea’s status as a regional power. If a nuclear
threshold state like Iran can get it, why can’t he?

But the kind of recognition that
Jong Un craves, considering his country’s internal economic situation, existing
state ideology, and his own deducible quirks of mind, must include a major
economic and development package offered in a manner that preserves his total
control of everything N. Korean. Everything has to be given directly to the
state, the state will disperse it as it pleases. There will be no civil society
organizations emerging, and no international organizations allowed to take part
in anything, at least not on N. Korean ground. Aid and investment will have to
come without any expectation of or demands for social or political openness,
and without any call for the dismantlement of existing nuclear warheads and
missiles. The best that could be achieved is perhaps a temporary freeze on
further development of the program.

In other words, the generosity
shown to Iran must be matched and raised several folds in any future deal with
the Dear Leader. This is one of those hidden costs of the Iran Deal that go far
beyond the Middle East and which no one would acknowledge. Just as no one wanted
to see a connection between Putin’s moves in Ukraine and Obama’s policy of
indifference towards Syria. But, in fact, Obama’s stance on Syria revealed to
all and sundry how deep his risk-aversion goes, and this has emboldened
autocrats far and wide. What better time to push the envelope than now, knowing
that every crisis you create only goes to justify and deepen Obama and the
realists’ risk-aversion?

The
Hypocrisy Cake!Here’s
What Would Happen if Saudi Arabia Deployed Troops to Syria. "Saudi Arabia's
strategic goals in Syria are very different from ours. And any new introduction
of foreign ground troops into Syria would be greatly complicating efforts to
focus attention on ISIS as the threat," says Stephen Kinzer, a senior
fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute of International and Public
Affairs. "The Saudis know what their goal is. They want to overthrow
Assad. Period."… "I would consider any introduction of foreign ground
troops [into Syria] to be destabilizing. You're pushing Saudi Arabian power
closer and closer to Iran," Kinzer says. "That kind of ground
deployment would certainly undermine the already weak efforts toward peaceful
resolution of this conflict." So, Saudi will intervene to
pursuit its interests, just like everyone else has done, and that is bound to
be destabilizing, just all previous interventions have accomplished, because
the one power that could make a difference has chosen to abdicate it all. But
to blame this hypothesized intervention by Saudi for undermining peace talks
rather than the ongoing Russian bombardment and Iranian military intervention
is the fucking icing on the hypocrisy cake.

The
Brave:‘You created
ISIS!’ Press conference scandal mars Kerry’s visit to Italy. Yes. Everybody
is brave when it comes to criticizing America, and making all sorts of foolish
accusations. But, admittedly, the screw-ups of the last two administrations have
made doing so that much easier. Still, there is nothing truly brave about
throwing your shoes or fists at America’s leaders, especially by those who fail
to show such courage and principle when Russia or Iran are involved. Those who
are motivated by ideology rather than commitment to human rights are not brave
but assholes, and when their ideology inspires them to tie bombs around their
waists and blow themselves up to make a point or take down a perceived enemy,
theirs will be an act of terrorism and criminality, not bravery. Personally, I
only gave myself the right to criticize America’s leaders, vehemently and openly,
because I had dared criticize the Assad regime itself, even while in Syria, in
very much the same open, vehement and irreverent manner with which I criticize
others. Whether doing so is wise or unwise, right or wrong, smart or stupid, brave
or foolish is another matter.

The point is this: a
measure of balance and consistency is required here, so is the ability to
differentiate between commitment to certain humanitarian principles and that
which binds one to certain ideological predilections. Of course, consistency is
not synonymous with resistance to change and refusing to acknowledge mistakes,
and when it does, this is exactly when we can safely label it as
ideological. I cannot sympathize with or
condone any action perpetrated by an ideologue or in the service of a
particular ideology, even when it seems to contain a certain cathartic element.
Fuck catharsis! Healing can only happen when the right things happen.

In 2013, a defector named
"Caesar" smuggled over 50,000 photographs of a hospital at a military
base in Damascus. These photographs revealed over 10,000 murdered and tortured
victims of the Assad regime. Bellingcat was able to geolocate these photos:
practically in the shadow of Assad's Presidential Palace.https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/case-studies/2015/03/18/3062/

The Assad regime and its allies
may behave like the Daleks and go about exterminating their opponents,
but we have Doctor Who himself on our side, and we shall be victorious: https://youtu.be/7M0i4x0HtLs.

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